This invention relates to explosives and more particularly to booster explosives.
Since the occurrence of the catastrophic fires aboard the USS FORRESTAL and USS ENTERPRISE, there has been a considerable effort within the U.S. Navy to introduce cook-off resistant ordnance into the fleet. In response to these fires, cook-off improvement programs have been instituted within the Navy with the goal of eventually developing weapons that neither detonate nor explode when subjected to fuel fires. Significant improvements have been made in increasing the cook-off times of ordnance through the use of heat path interruption techniques such as the use of internal insulating liners and external intumescent coatings. These approaches are designed to prevent or slow down the flow of heat for the explosives contained in the warhead. But, if the ordnance item is heated for a sufficiently long time, most, if not all, of these approaches could be defeated. Thus, for the warhead, the ultimate goal of developing weapons that neither detonate nor explode in a fuel fire will be very difficult to obtain unless cook-off resistant explosives are also incorporated into the weapon.
A number of main charge explosives have been developed which possess cook-off characteristics which indicate that they cook-off mildly in fuel fires. Unfortunately, the use of a cook-off resistant main charge will not itself insure a cook-off resistant warhead since the main charge can still be detonated by a cook-off sensitive booster. It is therefore critical that a cook-off resistant booster explosive be developed.